RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — All year long, Aryna Sabalenka was the constant of women\u2019s tennis — unbothered by her standing, the surface beneath her or the pressure around her. In Riyadh, in the match meant to affirm her season, that steadiness finally met its match.<\/p>\n
Thats’e because the last player to qualify became the last one standing. Elena Rybakina stretched her winning streak to 11 straight on Saturday night, defeating the World No. 1 6\u20133, 7\u20136 (0) to capture the WTA Finals title.<\/p>\n
With both finalists unbeaten in group play, Rybakina earned\u00a0$5.235 million\u00a0for the victory, while Sabalenka took home\u00a0$2.695 million\u00a0as runner-up. Even in defeat, Sabalenka\u2019s total set a new WTA single-season prize-money record, surpassing Serena Williams\u2019 2013 mark.<\/p>\n
“I was trying to stay very focused,” Rybakina said in press afterward. “And I think even on the tiebreak, only when I heard the game, set, match then I realized that, yeah, the match is finished, because I had also experience being, being up on the tiebreak and losing it. So honestly, I was just focusing really.”<\/p>\n
Rybakina\u2019s victory capped a three-title season that included Strasbourg and Ningbo and made her the 10th consecutive first-time WTA Finals champion. She finished second on tour for titles behind only Sabalenka (four) and tied Iga Swiatek and Jessica Pegula with three. Rybakina ended the year\u00a058\u201319, her strongest to date. The win also narrowed her rivalry with Sabalenka to\u00a08\u20136, with three of those victories now coming in finals — Indian Wells 2023, Brisbane 2024 and Riyadh 2025.<\/p>\n
The victory also tied Rybakina to several notable WTA Finals benchmarks:<\/p>\n
No. 6 seed success: The fourth No. 6 seed in the past seven editions to win the title, following Caroline Wozniacki, Elina Svitolina and Garbi\u00f1e Muguruza.
\nHistoric first: The first player representing Kazakhstan — and any Asian nation — to win the WTA Finals.
\nBack-to-back wins over No. 1s: Just the second player after Tracy Austin (1979\u201380) to defeat the World No. 1 in consecutive WTA Finals appearances.
\nWinning record vs. No. 1s: Now 8\u20136 all time against top-ranked players, one of only three women since 1975 with a winning record vs. the No. 1 (minimum 10 matches), along with Steffi Graf and Serena Williams.
\nTiebreak perfection: The 7\u20136 (0) finish was only the second love tiebreak win of her career (first in Rome 2022).<\/p>\n
The opening set was a heavy-hitting tug-of-war, both players landing big first serves until Rybakina found her range midway through. She broke Sabalenka at love to go up 4\u20132, sealing the game when the World No. 1 netted an overhead. Serving for the set at 5\u20133, Rybakina stayed composed and capitalized on two errors to close it out 6\u20133.<\/p>\n
Best of the 2025 WTA Finals Riyadh<\/p>\n
In the second, Sabalenka saved two break points in the third game and two more at 4\u20134 to stay even. But her resistance faded in the tiebreak, a surprising twist for the player who\u2019d won a record 22 of them this season, the most by anyone in the Open Era. For the first time in her career, she lost one 7-0, as Rybakina closed out the match — and the season — in straight sets.<\/p>\n
“She played incredible,” Sabalenka said. “I feel like I did my best today. It didn’t work, but I think so many things I have to be proud of. And yeah, I’m leaving this tournament without any disappointment. I leave with this tournament being proud of myself and the things that we’ve been able to achieve.”<\/p>\n
Sabalenka closes 2025 with four titles and 63 match-wins, including the\u00a0US Open\u00a0and two\u00a0WTA 1000\u00a0trophies, and will end as the\u00a0year-end No. 1\u00a0for a second straight season — one of only seven women to hold the top spot across consecutive calendar years. She also finished with\u00a015 Top 10 victories, the most of any player this season. Rybakina will finish at a career-high\u00a0No. 5.<\/p>\n
“Well it gives a lot of motivation, and hopefully I get some good rest and I can keep this mentality and bring it to the next season,” Rybakina said. “And yeah, hopefully we can improve even more and start strong. And I’m really glad that that was pretty stable throughout the whole tournament.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — All year long, Aryna Sabalenka was the constant of women\u2019s tennis — unbothered by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,5452],"class_list":{"0":"post-270752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}